The outcome–obvious and transparent;
A great project turned into fucking garbage.
This should infuriate Marty Walsh.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Beton Brut

Predictably, every possible ounce of visual interest and vitality have been bled form the concept. I recall criticizing the the initial design as "Bjarke Ingels on the cheap." The new renderings are so watered down, you can't even see the influence anymore. Another inhabitable massing model. Yay!

Just when you thought you've seen everything. This; just another example demonstrating how these 'Impact Advisory Groups' cleverly convene–and defraud Boston by reducing great projects into lousy ones, and gradually build a less great City. How is the lack of doing something great when you could have done something great–in any way, benefiting the public good?

^ In theory, IAGs can bring value and improve a result. In practice here in Boston (and probably elsewhere) the selection process is highly politicized, and many of those empaneled have deficient knowledge of the built environment; others arrive with "an agenda." To put it another way, we're using a good recipe and "bad" ingredients.

I've come to believe that it's incumbent upon the BPDA & BCDC to play a significant role in better educating IAG members (and the general population) on a spectrum of topics related to architecture and urbanism.

__________________This discussion has gone on far too long. Someone might wander by and get the impression that this is an architecture forum.

P.S. I'm all for BPA in the aggregate. But, to paint such a ridiculously overwrought and melodramatic depiction as, "[W]hen the most recent renderings were shown to our Board of Directors there was a collective gasp and unanimous shaking of heads," in an opposition letter, opens yourself to all kinds of ridicule....

P.S. I'm all for BPA in the aggregate. But, to paint such a ridiculously overwrought and melodramatic depiction as, "[W]hen the most recent renderings were shown to our Board of Directors there was a collective gasp and unanimous shaking of heads," in an opposition letter, opens yourself to all kinds of ridicule....

I don't think they'll face much ridicule - people love this pearl clutching approach from their activist groups. I do agree with them that there should be a push to bring down the garage all together instead of the lipstick on a pig approach, but come on folks: look at what's on the other side of Quincy Market. Heck, there's a pomo tower taller than this proposal (200 State) incorporated directly into the marketplace.

Across North St, this building would face the Haymarket Hotel (yet to even break ground) and the Bostonian, which is nice but certainly isn't a historical gem. They need to can it with the "looming over historical sites" nonsense.

(and FWIW, Quincy Market isn't a historical gem, it's a 1980s mall built into a historical building that spent most of the 20th century surrounded by parked cars and poultry guts).

EDIT: I see that no one (myself included) posted the BCDC presentation from December that BPA is reacting to, so here it is:

"[W]hen the most recent renderings were shown to our Board of Directors there was a collective gasp and unanimous shaking of heads,"

Woe! Woe! I cried, and from a far corner a chant of "blasphemy" slowly rose and encompassed the room until all but those who were in shock and unable to speak took part, for this was surely the work of a godless man. One poor fellow dropped to his knees clutching at his heart, while another, surely gone mad, brought his head repeatedly against the nearest wall. Our voices died out as we began to grasp the truth -- that we had little power to prevent this catastrophe. The men stood in solemn stoicism while the women wept.

__________________"You cannot take in a whole Boston street with a single glance of the eye and then lose your interest because you have thus taken the edge off future discovery; on the contrary, every step reveals some portion of a building which you could not see before, some change in your vista, and some suggestion of pleasant variety yet to come, which not only keeps your interest alive but heightens it and persuades you to go on."

It's a shit proposal... hard to disagree with the BPA in that regard. I'm not sure what can be done though that will satisfy them?

Well that's the crux of it, isn't it? Aside from some pastiche Federalist po-mo fantasy, what would the BPA not find blasphemous? I'd love to sit in and watch a design charette to see what happens if the BPA had the opportunity to develop the site. I'd literally pay money to sit in a room with them for 8-10 hours and see what sort of god awful Lincoln-log masterpiece (re: dumpster fire) they'd collectively come up with to save ye olde Boston. An complete tear-down as they advocate for, would likely mean the developer would need to go higher. The garage, in it's current form, gots to go.